Windows 8.1 - Massive Crashing Issues

[stimshady]

Hi all,

I just installed Windows 8.1 (from MSDN TechNet) at the weekend and installed WMC again.

I use WMC to play lots of .TS files (DVDs on HD). I use My Movies as the backend database.

I have barely been able to make it through 1 full movie now without WMC just crashing out, Fast Forward, Pause and Rewind crash it too.

Lots of application errors and .NET errors relating to eshell in the event viewer.

Has anyone else experienced lots of crashing or problems with 8.1? I have now done two fresh reinstalls and also a system refresh and still the same. I have used the ATI graphics drivers and the MS Windows drivers. I have set security on the hardddrives. Nothing seems to make a difference.

Unless I find a solution soon, i'm going back to 8...

Any ideas/tips would be gratefully received!

[staknhalo]

Never experienced anything like that with 8.1 on my desktop or HTPC.

[stimshady]

Never experienced anything like that with 8.1 on my desktop or HTPC.

That makes me wonder if I have some incompatible hardware for my system then. Am running an XFX 6450 HD Radeon card. The rest is quite an old system, Core2Duo, 2GB Ram.. branded stuff, ASUS board, OCZ Ram etc...

[holidayboy]

I set up a test machine over the weekend and found it very stable - I ran it as a dvr and also for local file playback through the built in movie browser (using yammm on a different machine to provide dvdid.xml files).

[stimshady]

Actually on further investigation, I believe MS has forced WMC to mess with MyMovies. If you use MyMovies, I think the best advice is don't upgrade to 8.1. Fortunately, that machine is just media box, so will revert to 8.0 and stick on that for a long, long time...

The internal movie selector is fine, but MyMovies is the problem part here...

[holidayboy]

Yeah, sorry I didn't spot the mymovies part of your 1st post, there are several posts about non compatibility with 8.1 over on the mymovies forums.

[stimshady]

Yeah, sorry I didn't spot the mymovies part of your 1st post, there are several posts about non compatibility with 8.1 over on the mymovies forums.

just found them! wish I had read that on Friday before spending the whole weekend trying to mend the impossible!!

[holidayboy]

I think we've all been there!

[deihmos]

Windows 8.1 does not play nice with plugins. Media Browser does not work and dtbaddin crashes. Microsoft just keeps screwing up WMC even though they have not provided an updated sdk or any documentation since Vista.

[amcneish]

I think there may be problems with Windows Media Center and Windows 8.1

I too am having crashing.. around recording times... and if I do other activities while watching live TV...

I have reinstalled the Hauppauge HDV-1850 drivers...

I had many issues with the Windows update: VirtualBox, HP Photosmart c7280 software, Fujitsu fi-6130z software, Adobe (in Explorer)... All needed to be completely removed and reinstalled ....

I too am thinking about returning to Windows 8.0 (it was very solid)

[bob_p]

If you're having problems with 8.1 - which version - is it the Preview, RTM or the App Store version?

Installed the App Store version yesterday on my desktop - which has WMC installed - and the installation went pretty smoothly - and while I only ran WMC for a few seconds yesterday just to verify it worked - haven't noticed any major problems or crashes yet.

[amcneish]

It was the app store version

The upgrade seemed to go well... but then things started to fail

The crashes... they just go... with no record of why??

[JohnW248]

With my SD Prime cableCARD tuner, I had to remove and re-install the SD software. I think this was because the "new" firewall didn't use the old rules since there were lots of other things I had to reset such as homegroup, type of network, sign in to all the servers again (the credentials weren't saved) and so forth. MC is playing both recordings on the host and on the servers and plays live tv from protected content sources (Time Warner Cable almost everything is CCI 0x02 copy once) now...haven't had a crash yet

[amcneish]

I did that with my Hauppauge card.. and the IR Blaster... Still getting crashes...

Funny.. this time I was running virtual box (with a Ubuntu client).. It seemed to be having issues with the audio.. then the Windows 8.1 Pro rebooted automatically

(Windows Media Center was running in the background recording a program

[barnabas1969]

You could have a driver or hardware problem. Not likely to be a Media Center problem. You should go searching to see if you can find new drivers specifically for Win8, especially for your Hauppauge tuner.

[leroys1000]

Turn the computer off and ground your self against the case.
Unplug the AC cord the go inside and unplug and replug the
main ATX power connection.
If your drive is AHCI,make sure it is enabled in the BIOS.
If not set it to IDE mode.
Try one more clean install.
I think microsoft is working on a memory leak in the live TV
buffer.

[amcneish]

I have tried reinstalling many of the drivers... Certainly the Hauppauge drivers where the first I reinstalled. I have reinstalled much of the other software: adobe, ITunes, Virtualbox, and any other drivers which I could find Windows 8.1 drivers...

Re installing Windows 8.1 Pro.. I feel that it would be more productive and direct to reinstall Windows 8.0 Pro.. at least it was stable!

[stimshady]

Final release of Win8.1 with the GA Rollup updates works perfectly - I think this definitely proves that the RTM was not actually finalised...

All good again

[amcneish]

I do not know what you are saying???

I have stayed away from Windows Media Center for 24 hours and my system did not crash..

I will now start using it (and not VirtualBox).. and see which one is causing the crashes...

Looks like either Windows Media Center AND/OR Virtualbox are causing crashing in Windows 8.1 Pro (as released last Thursday)

[barnabas1969]

@amcneish: When you say that you "reinstalled" the drivers, did you actually go to the hardware manufacturer's website to look for drivers that are specifically for Windows 8?